Talk:Portland, Oregon

The most breweries in the whole multiverse

The article currently states that Portland has 28 breweries, more than any other city in the country. The Oregon Brewers Guild claims that number to be 40, therefore most brewery-rich city in the world, if not the galaxy. The number we use is from the NY times in 2006, the Oregon Brewers Guild cites themselves in August 2011. Oregon Business magazine from 2008 likes the number 38. Entrepreneur magazine in 2011 cites the Oregon Brewers Guild and says its 40 plus another 10 within metro limits I'm changing the statement to reflect the Oregon Brewers Guild numbers since they are more recent than the NY Times article and other reliable sources cite them. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 03:09, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Adding important groups to Arts & Entertainment

I am curious why the following acts have been overlooked/omitted from the Arts & Entertainment section:

Black 'N' Blue

Storm Large

Poison Idea

Quarterflash

Dan Reed Network

Wild Dogs

TomYears (talk) 23:51, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

• There have to be some limits on the number of bands listed in that paragraph (a broader collection can be found at List of people from Portland, Oregon and in Category:Musicians from Oregon and its subcategories. But,having said that, I actually agree about Quarterflash: they were very big for a short while, and, as I recall, their connection to Portland was mentioned constantly in the media coverage. In my opinion, there's at least as good a case for their inclusion as some of the more critically acclaimed but less successful groups already on that list. I don't know if the case is as strong for the other bands listed above. --Arxiloxos (talk) 00:12, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

"Racial history" section

This section seems to suffer from a bad case of correlation fallacy - namely:

A = There's historically been racism and racist policies in Portland, and there still is some racism in Portland today.

B = Portland is more predominantly White than most other American metro-areas of its size.

Therefore, A caused B.

Yes, I have no doubt that there's historically been racism and racist policies in Portland, or that there's still racism in Portland today. But is this what caused Portland's demographics?

I think it would be useful to compare with other cities. For example, on the West Coast one could look at Los Angeles and Oakland in California. Were these cities historically less racist that Portland? Is there less racism in these cities and their police forces than there is in Portland and its police force today?...

My sense is that the answer to these questions is no. And I would be surprised if anything in Porland's history were found to be significantly more racist than what was happening in other American cities of its size at the same time.

My understanding is that the primary reason there aren't more Black people in Portland is that there was never slavery in Oregon, and there weren't as many industrial jobs available during the periods of the Great Migration and Second Great Migration.

And in the present day, causal factors would include the fact that a higher percentage of White people middle to upper class and more readily able to relocate to another part of the country, and also an element of self-segregation - many Black people feel more comfortable living in areas with more Black people, and many Whites tend to feel more comfortable (whether consciously or subconsciously) living in areas with more White people. Now, one could make the case that these are the result of racism too, and there's certainly some truth to that, but it's not in the way that the article implies - namely that Portland is and has historically been significantly *more racist* than other American cities and that this is why there are fewer minorities.

-Helvetica (talk) 20:52, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

While, as basically the whitest major city in America, I think there should be a critical study of this subject, I agree that there is an imbalance here in POV. It is obviously undue weight to have a section that long, and some of the contents are ridiculous – the quote from Time being especially so. I think if you want to clean it up you should go for it. Steven Walling • talk 21:11, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

How is the Time quote rediculous? It speaks to the (large) skinhead movement that prevaded Portland in the 80s and early 90s. In any case, the section doesn't use synthesis of material to reach conclusions; it presents information from sources without commentary. (disclaimer: I originally wrote it) tedder (talk) 22:02, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

It's just sensationalist, especially considering that in the years since then, Portland has in fact not become known for some kind of big skinhead movement. It was clearly a reaction to the incident that the piece is about, not a data-backed piece of commentary about the long term racial history trends. Steven Walling • talk 23:41, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Regarding racist skinheads and other racist extremists, the article states: "In the 1980s and 1990s, radical skinhead groups flourished in Portland." What exactly does "flourished" mean here in terms of their prevalence relative to the general population? Are we talking dozens? Hundreds? Thousands?...

How did the prevalence of racist extremists compare to the prevalence of say hippies or punk-rockers during that same period?...

Perhaps more relevant, how did the relative prevalence of racist extremists in Portland compare with that in other metro areas like LA and the Bay Area?

To the point, can a clear and compelling case be made that Metro-Portland's racist extremists were so prevalent in the 80s and 90s and committed so much violence and intimidation to the point where they had a noticeable impact on the region's demographics? -Helvetica (talk) 23:32, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Helvetica, while you potentially raise some good issues, I'm not sure how they are directly related to the section on racial history in the Portland article specifically. I don't see what you mean by correlation fallacy (the section doesn't argue that, for example, skinhead violence is what causes the demographics today). I also don't see how it is relevant that cross-city comparisons are necessary for discussing racial history of a city (does the fact that say Portland not having an equivalent to the LA Watts riots make a history of housing discrimination any less pertinent?). It's possible that many of the issues you first brought up may have been addressed since you wrote them (I know I personally edited a statement that was overstating a claim from its source), but as it stands now, unless you have a strong argument otherwise, I don't think there's a neutrality issue (anymore). (Simulcra (talk) 16:40, 7 December 2011 (UTC))

I agree with the people opposing this section about racism. The information is superfluous based merely on the percentage of whites (keep in mind the United States is 80% white, which means Portland, Oregon actually has more African Americans than the national average). If the mentioning of the "skin head" movement in Portland is important, then surely it's equally important, if not more so, to mention the skin head movements in nearly every european city (particularly German and British cities and most eastern European cities), and especially in Vancouver, Canada and Calgary, Canada, where the Aryan Brotherhood (a white supremacist group) is far more popular than any white supremacy group in Portland, Oregon (perhaps anywhere in the United States). If anything Portland, Oregon is one of the most "liberal" cities in the United States (no shock that the most "liberal" U.S. cities happen to be also the whitest?). Wiki writers do seem to place an overabundant emphasis on racism in articles pertaining to the United States, as if it's a circumvented topic in the United States. That's almost as funny as this section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MarioSmario (talk • contribs) 17:40, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

The European cites skinheads argument is irrelvant, we aren't talking about Europe, feel free to add such info to those pages but lack of information in some unrelated articles is not relevant to this discussion. Racism is included in this article because it is relevant to the topic, it has nothing to do with whether or not people are "liberal." I would recommend MarioSmario read the section more closely, the sections states several relevant facts in a Neutral and concise fashion, without relying on the percentage of whites for anything other than directly discussing the past and present racial makeup of the city. I would also argue, in ways similar to Simulcra above, that the argument Helvetica claims is a correlation fallacy is not actually present in the article. - Metal lunchbox ^(talk) 08:37, 17 January 2012 (UTC)